In My View: Remembering Mary Lou "Smokey" Schneider

Friday

Editor's note: Mary Lou "Smokey" Schneider was the owner of Smokey's Den, widely considered Springfield's first openly gay bar. She died Jan. 1.

Mary Schneider was 86 years old when she left us on New Year's Day. She felt she didn't do anything special other than softball and the bar, according to only two interviews I am aware she ever did.

Her family owned a bar in Jacksonville. "I grew up in a bar. It was bootlegging back then. By the time I was 10 I was smoking, and by the time I got to be a teenager, I was drinking beer," Mary once said.

She became active in fast-pitch softball in 1946. In 1950, she began playing for an amateur team in Peoria. At the same time, the All-American Girls Baseball League was at its height.

During the 1951 season she was invited to pitch to a catcher for the Rockford team. They wanted her to go up, but she wouldn't. She was afraid that if her bursitis came back and she couldn't keep up with the professionals, she wouldn't be able to go back to amateur ball. At the end of the season, she switched to a softball team in Springfield and played second base.

Mary earned the name Smokey when she played for the Springfield team that had three players named Mary. Players would go out after games, and everywhere they went, "On top of Old Smokey" was blaring. One night, Mary had her fill and tripped the jukebox. The girls started calling her Smokey.

She retired from softball in 1965 but continued to play in recreational leagues. She was inducted into the Softball Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City in the mid-1970s.

During her final years on the softball circuit, she lived in Springfield and came to love it. On Oct. 30, 1966, she opened Smokey's Tavern. This was before the infamous Stonewall riot, which is documented as the beginning of the gay-rights movement.

Mary packed the house every night, even though no law protected gay establishments in the mid '60s. She had some doubts but knew kids like her needed a place to go where they didn't feel afraid.

The first night the bar opened was tense. Mary told the crowd the police may come in and run ID checks, and that if they did, customers should get out their IDs and hand them to the officer. She said that if the police asked a question, she wanted to hear "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," as answers. Everyone was welcome as long as they treated everyone with respect. Mary did not tolerate hatefulness and disrespect.

In the beginning when officers came in, someone would yell, "Switch!" and the guys would grab the closest girl and start dancing with her. One night the regular beat cop came in and after "Switch!" was yelled, the cop said, "Oh, forget it, carry on."

Mary never met any trouble, but she always carried a .357 Magnum when she headed home.

In 1967 the bar started having professional drag shows.

I started going into Mary's in 1983 when I was 18. An older lady behind the bar asked for my ID. I gave her my fake ID and ordered a beer. She said, "Welcome to Smokey’s. I'm Smokey." We became friends, and I eventually started bartending for her. I tended bar at Smokey's for nine years.

Many people met the loves of their lives, or maybe the love of their weekend, in Smokey's. Some didn't. But one thing I know is that most of us met the friends of our lives there.

On Feb. 27, 2003, we all gathered for one last great night at Smokey's Den. When Mary closed it, Smokey's was the oldest gay bar in Illinois and one of the oldest in the nation under the same owner.

Whatever you choose to believe happens in the afterlife is what you choose. I choose to believe Mary is now with Rachael, Natalie, Miss Pauline, CC Lines and all the other greats, and that they are getting ready to put on a hell of a show and cheering for Mary's beloved Cubs.

-- Jodi Woodard lives in Springfield.

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